A LABOR~TORY MANUALOR PHYSIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY.D. Wright Wilson, Benjamin Rush Professor of Physiological Chemistrv. Universitv of Pennsvlvania. Fifth Edition. The w i l l i a m s Wilkins Company, Baltimore, 1944. 269 pp. 4 tables. 16 X 23.5 cm. $2.50. Produced in "V style" under wartime conditions t o conserve materials, with no page headings, no figures, and many procedures too brief for primary use, surprisingly this hook is printed on only one side of the paper with all of theright-hand pages blank. This feature is convenient for note-taking and for taking clippings from the book, but it discourages students from the proper direct use of lahoratory notebooks, which are nowhere mentioned. However, this volume is honestly presented in its preface "as a teaching manual and not as a comprehensive reference book." Where the supply of special apparatus is restricted, hut the zeal for extensive teaching and explaining is unfettered, Wilson's 6fth edition should fit well in medical, dental, and veterinary courses. The author faces realistically the p w r preparation of students for a course in physiological chemistry, and admirably renews in the first chapters of Part I many principles and reactions which should have heenlearned in organic and general chemistry courses. H e then takes up the properties of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. I n Part I1 there are experiments an the digestive secretions. Various tissues, blood, urine, purines, and dietary deficiencies in laboratory animals. Whether a given procedure is fully described or most briefly summarized seems unpredictable. The handling of calorimeters is described briefly, but the use of ammonia aeration outfits not a t all. It is evidently assumed that students will frequently refer t o the original literature, through the use of references given in fwtnotes. The experiments are numbered separately in each short subject-section, rather than in a single convenient sequence. As a glaring exception t o its ma'dernity, this volume stresses the use of Fehling's solution as a test for reducing sugars and makes negligible mention of the more permanent and convenient Benedid's solution. Unless large amounts of animal tissues were available. some of the lona.hut instructive biochemical preparations and purifications could not he carried out well. Flexibility of application is lost because of the way in which much of the hook is pointed to specific arrange ments and conditions in the author's own laboratory. The student is encouraged t o prepare many of his own special reagents by recipes in the body of the text in full-sized type. This is good training in self-reliance, if there are enough laboratory hours t o permit its being done carefully. Both old and new methods for quantitative determinations on blood and urine are given, hut aid in making the calculations is extremely meager. The proof reading has been done almost t o complete perfection, and the binding is sturdy and well suited for laboratory use in the open position. DAVID LYMAN DAVXDSON Gorrnms J. Essmm Inc. B o s r o ~~. a s s ~ c a o s k m
WOODC m ~ ~ s mLouis . E. Wise, Editor, The Institute of Paper Chemistry, Appleton, Wisconsin. (A. C. S. Monograph. No. 97.) Reinhold Publishing Corporation. New York. 1944. a + 9 0 0 p p . 58figs. 153tables. 15.5X23.5cm. $11.50. Particularly interesting now is this hook an one of Nature's most abundant and versatile raw materials. I n this and other countries engaged in the overwhelming industrial development occasioned by war, the need for raw materials has been tremendously expanded-d woad is woven throughout the entire militarv fabric. \Vood as a readily worked material is being so widely harvested that r e are cutting into the backlog of generations of growth: for usemechanically aslumhcr; for use with thechcmical unitsof ultimate cellulose unchanged in pulp for paper, rayon, solvent. and explosives themselves; and for use chemically, t o give alcohol for motor fuel, synthetic rubber for tires, oxalates for the "tracer" in tracer bullets, plastics in their myriad chemical and mechanical forms, and many others. The readiness with which
wood may be harvested has made i t practical for many mechanical utilizations hitherto reserved for steel; and, in many cases, also a chemical raw material for finished products of chemical conversion usually obtained from other sources. Much has been written without exhausting this subject, currently of such importance, and here there is a book of 900 pages. (Books on wood use larger and larger amounts of the subject materialas they get increasingly thicker.) I n a bwkcovering such a comprehensive field as the growth, chemistry, methods of analysis, physical properties, and industrial chemical utilization of wood and materials therefrom, there is first the problem of d%termining the scope and then the organization of the mass of ma-. terial. No plan can be perfect, hut this one seems to have been particularly good in the presentation of most of the essential facts on wood of interest to the chemist. The authors ire a group of over one dozen of the outstanding men in fields ranging from the botany and anatomy of wood through the chemistry, physical properties,polymeric aspects of the cellulose molecule, and industrial utilization in various of its many outlets. The names in this list are an impressive indication of the authority of the hook itself. and the editor has molded their writings well. The silviculturist will find this interesting because his field is treated; so also will the physicist, the physical chemist, the organic chemist, the cellulose chemist, the industrial chemist in rayon pulp production and various other fields, the chemical engineer, and even the construction engineer. F. OTHMRR DONALD POLYTECAMC INSTITOTS OP BROOYN NBW Yoag BROOKLYN, THE PHOTOGMPW OP THE RECIPROULLATTICE. M. I.Buerpr, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (ASXRED Monograph, Number 1.) The American Society for X-ray and Elec37 pp. 18 tron Diffraction, Cambridge, Mass., 1944. ix figs. 15.5 X 23.5 cm. $1.50. "The theory of photographing the reciprocal lattice without distortion is briefly discussed, and then applied to a novel method in which diffraction is caused t o occur by an unusual motion of the crystal in a beam of monochromatic x-radiation. I n this method, a rational direction of the crystal is caused t o make a recessi inn- motion. the crvstal beina- sunnorted a t the unmoved point of a universal joint. The theory of recording the reciprocal lattice whilc utilizing this motion is discussed, and a n iortrumcnt for taking such precrrrion photopphr is desnibed."
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A D D R ~TO~THE I C~E*STRY OF TEE AMINO Acms AND PROTEINS. Edited by Carl L. A. Sckmidd, Professor of Biochemistry and Dean of the College of Pharmacy, University of California. Charles C Thomas, Publisher. Springfield, Illinois, 1943. xii 1035-1290 pp. 41 figs. 32 tables. 16 X 25 cm.
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Rather than t o attempt a revised edition of the basicvolume, this smaller addendum was decided upon, which brings knowledge in this field up t o date from 1937. A collaboration by 12 contributors follows the chapter headings and continues the page numbering of the original volume, to which i t would seem t o be a neeessary addition. ALIGNMENT CHARTS: CONSTRU(ITION AND USE. Maurice Kraitrhik. Professor of Mathematics. New School for Social Research, New York. D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., New York, 1944. 94pp. 43 figs. 15 X 23 an. 8 . 5 0 . A nomographic chart is described as a diagram, or combination of diagrams, for the reprercntatiun of a matl~ematicallaw. One simple example is the ordinary type of "curve" or Cartcsiao cuordinates representing a function of two variables; another is the ever useful slide rule. Less familiar are the alignment charts discussed in this hwk, hy which more complicated functions--of other or more variahleemay be represented graphically.
